Alpha Dog
by laughingmagician
Summary: The bad guys won, now Kitty Pryde is confronted by an old classmate. X3 spoilers. Also, if even the insinuation of rape bothers you, don’t read this one.
1. Chapter 1

**Alpha Dog**

an original X-Men Movieverse one-shot fan fiction

**written by: **jennifer s. a.k.a. assassinelektra

**Disclaimer:**

I do not own the X-Men movies or comics, or their characters. This is a fan fiction story meant only for the enjoyment of myself and other X-Men fans.

**Title**: Alpha Dog

**Genre**: Angst

**Setting**: Right after the Alcatraz fight in X-Men 3: The Last Standing

**Pairing**: John/Kitty

**Rating: **R (for language and content)

**Warnings:** X3 Spoilers. Also, if even the insinuation of rape bothers you, don't read this one.

**Author's Note: This isn't fluffy at all. This is cold, hard, not-taking-any-shit-cuz-everyone-I-care-about-is-dead Kitty and John. So in other words, it's quite a bit different from my other Kyro fics. **

**Alpha Dog**

So they had lost. The X-Men, for all their power and training, had lost. And Jean Grey had nearly killed them all.

Kitty woke up in an empty room and panicked, jumping to her feet and running towards the nearest wall only to find that she couldn't phase through it. She looked around frantically, expecting to see Leech there looking guilty because he was making her powers temporarily disappear. But she was alone.

Until the door opened.

He had dyed his hair some time after leaving, and his boots made him stand a bit taller—which she guessed was the reason he wore such horrendous things—but he still had the same expression on his face that he had always held while going to school with her.

"Hey, Kitten," his tone was casual, but she saw the fire in his eyes, the hatred and anger and spite all gathered over a few years of having that temper fed by none other but Magneto.

It suddenly became quite clear that the X-Men _had_ lost. If they hadn't, John would be dead or locked up and the others would be here to save her by now.

"What did you do to Bobby?" Kitty asked, and with her tone of voice she gave nothing away.

The smirk that crossed John Allerdyce's face was all the answer she needed. Kitty fought back the urge to cry, realizing that she no longer had the luxury of mourning for those she'd cared about. Not here, not now, not ever again. For however long he let her live.

"Funny thing about ice," John started, seeming quite proud as he spoke, "if you hit it hard enough," his smirk grew, "it _shatters_."

He was trying to get at her, to bite at the last nerve she had left, but Kitty wasn't going to let him. She leaned back against the nearest wall, more to keep standing than anything, and tried to ignore how weak and sore she felt from the battle at Alcatraz.

"It's too bad," she commented, "he could _create_ the ice, not just control it. Maybe you could have learned something from him."

John's face changed instantly from amused to pure revulsion. She honestly thought he was going to puke all over her. Then the moment passed and his cool demeanor returned. "It's something isn't it?" he asked, glancing around at the room. "Government was going to keep us in these," he looked back at her. "Don't know what they did, but it makes our powers useless."

"So the Brotherhood is running the country now too?" She asked, laughing quietly.

"What's so funny?" He asked, glaring at her.

"The idea that you people think you're still in the right here!" She told him with a smile. "I mean, damn, haven't you figured it out yet?" He gave her a questioning look, and Kitty took that as her cue to continue. "You _are_ the bad guys."

He backhanded her so quickly she didn't have time to react, and since she wasn't used to people being able to hit her so easily, the shock alone of the move sent her to the ground. "I fought _for_ our kind, not against it!" He yelled, his voice booming in the tiny room.

Kitty could tell he was surprised as hell when she merely stood back up, without reacting to his slap in any other way. "Our kind?" She scoffed in disbelief. "Are we not _people_ anymore?"

"We're gods." He replied, giving her a dark grin.

"Oh, right," she said sarcastically, and once again he seemed surprised that she was acting so casual.

"Why are you…?" He looked at her a little closer, as if looking for some physical sign as to how she was able to take things so well. "Why aren't you afraid of me?"

At this she laughed outright. "John, I never was afraid of you." Kitty told him.

"DON'T call me that!" He raised his hand to slap her again, but paused when he saw the smile on her face.

"It's your name," she said, speaking each word deliberately slow as she looked right into his eyes.

"Not anymore," he told her quickly. "I'm not the guy you used to know."

"No, you're not," Kitty agreed. "He had at least a little bit of sanity left." She wasn't playing games. This wasn't fun, and she hated it, but she was bitter. War does that to a person.

Kitty Pryde, who had once been the kindest student John had known, was now replaced with the emotionless warrior in front of him who lived to taunt her enemies and would be rebellious to the end.

"I didn't miss you," she said suddenly. "Everyone else was crying and bitching that you'd left, but I never missed you." At this comment he frowned, and her smile only grew.

"Why do you think I would care if _you_ missed me?" He asked.

She just shrugged. "You're pretty self-involved. I know there has got to be a reason you haven't killed me yet, and I figure it's because you want me to pity you so that you can smack me around for caring." Kitty said the words and watched his mouth fall open slightly in surprise. "Don't waste too much time though," she added, "because I don't care at all."

"Don't care?" He asked, smirking, and she knew that he was about to turn things around on her again. "You don't care that I fucking killed Bobby Drake right in front of everyone and they didn't stop to help?" He leaned against the wall with one arm, hand resting right beside her head, so that he could talk right at her. "You don't care that Dr. Grey is the one that helped us win, that she killed Wolverine and the others?"

Kitty's face did not change, and she stared him right in the eyes. She could tell it bothered him that she wasn't afraid of him at all, and inwardly that made her smile. But outwardly she kept the indifferent expression.

"Magneto's giving you a choice." John said suddenly. "I wanted to just fucking kill you," he glanced down at her X-suit in disgust, "but he insists that we can still make you see the truth."

"Giving me a choice?" She laughed. "Just kill me."

"Stop that." He muttered backing away from her to stand near the other wall.

"Stop what?" She asked in challenge.

"Stop not caring."

"Well what do I have to care about anymore?" She asked. "Everyone I cared about or knew is dead, I'm locked somewhere under Magneto's control, and he sent his pathetic lackey to try and talk me into joining him. I have nothing to care about."

"No, you need to care!" He yelled, and Kitty raised an eyebrow in response but said nothing. "Because," he started quietly, looking at her, "because if _you_ don't care, then what's the point in all of this?"

"Well, that's the question, isn't it?" Kitty said. "Why keep fighting when your enemy no longer cares?"

"Shut up." He said, turning his back to her. The way he was standing, she knew he was trying to decide whether to leave the room or stay. He decided to stay, and turned around to face her again. "Do you know why I hated you so much?"

"Please, enlighten me." Kitty said sarcastically.

He ignored the sarcastic tone as he walked over to stand in front of her again. "Because I _wanted_ you." It was obvious that the very idea disgusted him, that it probably always had.

Kitty scoffed. "Why?"

John glared at her. ""You were the one person that I _literally_ couldn't touch, and you were always so fucking happy about it! It pissed me off!" he told her. "I mean, yeah Rogue sucks the life out of people if you touch her, but _you_…" his eyes narrowed, "you won't _let_ people touch you."

"And that's why I left," he added.

"Oh no," she said shaking her head. "Don't you dare try to blame that on me. You made a choice to leave. You can't live with that now, want a scapegoat? Look in the fucking mirror!" She snapped. "I guarantee what you see will scare the hell out of you."

"You bitch!" He yelled, and this time she actually flinched in response, because it surprised her. "You're in no position to judge me!"

"Thankfully," she told him. "I'd hate to have all that crap on my shoulders." For the second time he raised his hand to smack her, and she merely glanced at it. "Go ahead. Hit me." She urged him.

He looked at her with confusion in his eyes, and she continued, "is that what this is about? You trying to prove you're stronger than me? That you're the fucking alpha dog in all of this? Then go ahead!" She shoved him backwards lightly, and he looked at her in disbelief. "But grow a pair first."

The anger returned to his face so quickly his cheeks turned red. For the first time, Kitty actually felt a little fear that she was truly in danger, because the look in his eyes demanded blood.

"Do you think this is funny?" He asked her. "You, being locked here in this room?"

"Am I laughing?"

He smirked at this response. "Cute." John told her. "Do you _want_ to die?"

"I don't want anything anymore." Kitty answered darkly.

"Well I do." He told her, shoving her back against the wall. "This room," he said, looking around as he held her, pinned against the wall, 'it's really something, isn't it?" He smiled as she struggled. "Can't run through me now, can you?"

She was incredibly weakened from the battle, and even had that not been the case, Kitty knew he could easily overpower her. Yet she kept struggling, because this was one thing she would _not_ allow to happen.

"I'm not going to kill you," John said, speaking into her ear, and in the way he said it she almost thought he was trying to comfort her.

She tried to run to the side and catch him off guard, but his arm stopped her roughly and held her back against the wall. Kitty stopped struggling and looked at him, the very beginnings of tears in her eyes as she realized she couldn't win. "Do this and you won't have to," she told him.

His face changed quite suddenly, and all at once he looked lost. John held onto her wrists for a few more moments, then let them go almost in a jerk and backed away. He looked down at his hands with wide eyes, then back up at her.

"I hate you." John said, before turning and leaving the room.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: **In the lj version of this I was able to link to the video of the song Kitty was singing, but I can't do that here, so please search youtube for "Down In A Rabbit Hole" by Bright Eyes

**Chapter 2**

_We are all so much together, but we are all dying of loneliness_

~Albert Schweitzer

He hated her for two reasons--one because she was an X-Men. That meant he hated her by default, hated everything she was about and stood for, even if they'd all been destroyed by now. Two, well two was a bit more complicated. Two involved the fact that he really had wanted her while they were at school, that part of him might have actually cared about her on some level. That was why he had stopped himself. She wasn't just a prisoner, she was _that_ prisoner. The prisoner that made him pause and think about what he was doing before he did it.

Maybe in another life they could have been friends, could have been something more, but the harsh reality of their world now was that everyone was at war and no one had time to stop any care anymore. And he preferred it that way--it was so much better than a world where the Professor expected them to share their feelings and work together. John much preferred Magneto's harsh ruling to the teachers at the school.

But she had stirred something inside of him.

Looking at the simple ball of flame he had suspended over his open palm, John's eyes seemed ablazed by the fire's reflection as he focused on nothing else.

And back inside her cell, Kitty sat on the floor with her back against one of the walls, staring at the ground. She could still see their faces--the faces of her classmates and friends as they'd died. Death had a certain look to it--it was in the eyes, so empty and blank--and now it was the way she would remember most of them. It broke her heart as she tried to think back on what Bobby had been like alive and couldn't recall anything but the image of what he would have looked like as the shattered pieces of ice he'd died as.

It wasn't the loss of her power that had her so pitifully cowaring, but the loneliness that came from surviving something that no one else had. To be a lone survivor was a heavy burden to carry. She was the last one to have known them, the last one who knew what had really happened, and surviving when all of the people she had cared about were destroyed literally hurt. It wasn't guilt--Kitty knew this wasn't her fault--and it was something well beyond grief. It was as if every reason she'd ever had to smile was suddenly gone, and she was just as dead as they were, living in a shell of her former self.

Quietly, she hummed the tune of the only song she could recall at the moment. She remembered the words perfectly and couldn't help but relate to them completely. "If your thoughts should turn to death," she sung quietly, near whispering, "Gotta stomp them out like a cigarette..." So much easier said than done though when she was the only survivor. She really was Alice fallen down the rabbit hole, thrown into a world that was complete Hell compared to the world she'd once known.

"Get up," John snapped, walking into the room, and Kitty ignored him. He'd broken her depressed thoughts, but she was not about to let him order her around. Neither of them could use their powers in here, after all, which made him no better than her. "I said, get up," he commanded again, voice darker this time, holding a hint of warning.

Kitty looked up at him slowly through her bangs that had fallen in front of her eyes. Staring at him through cold eyes, she uttered one word. "No."

John stared at her for a moment, as if trying to figure out if she was serious or not. He noticed the way her shoulders were hunched over, the dark circles under her eyes that said she hadn't slept since she'd woke up there, and the lack of emotion--which once more bothered him. She was supposed to be full of defiant life. And without even realizing it, his own expression of cold anger softened ever so slightly--in the curves around his eyes and the corners of his mouth, movement so subtle he didn't even feel it.

"Come on," he said, holding his hand out as if to offer her help in standing.

"No," Kitty argued again.

"Don't you even want to know where we'd be going?" he snapped, completely annoyed with her defiance now.

"Don't really care."

"Wouldn't you like to wash the blood of your friends out of your hair?" John asked darkly, catching her eyes.

Slowly, she stood up, refusing his hand the entire time. What did she really have to lose in following him? If this was real, and she was allowed to shower, she was going to take the chance.

He reached out to grab her arm and she flinched, pulling away. He knew part of that was because of the last time he'd visited her cell, what he'd threatened and nearly done.

"Don't touch me," she hissed, looking at the floor again.

John didn't try to touch her again, just silently leading the way. And Kitty kept quiet as long as she could, but she recognized this place and it surprised her. "Is..is this the White House?" she asked. John just smirked, and that gave her, her answer. "And the President?"

"You're one of the few alive, Kitten," John reminded her in way of vague answer.

"Oh my god," Kitty commented, hand coming to cover her mouth as she realized that this was on so much of a bigger scale than just the X-Men. Who knew what Magneto was doing now that he had control one of the world's current leading governments.

John turned the corner, pausing to make sure she did as well, and while her look of horror should have made him feel better it did nothing. So once again he walked in silence until they were at the bathroom--probably one of the many the President himself used. On the counter beside the sink laid some clothes she could change into--John had just randomly grabbed whatever looked like her tiny size--and a towel.

Kitty walked into the bathroom and paused to look at her reflection. She didn't recognize the girl who looked back at her at all. Finally tearing her gaze away, she glanced back at him. "Can I shut the door?"

"No," John told her.

"If I'd wanted to run away, I could have the moment we stepped out of that cell," Kitty pointed out.

"Who would you run to?" John asked, and in that question Kitty felt completely devistated, because he was right. She had nowhere to go, no one to run to.

"Fine," Kitty muttered, turning her back to him as she unzipped the front of her X-Men uniform. Pealing that leather away from her skin tore at wounds that had healed against it, ripping open cuts that painfully began to bleed again. It was like slowly removing a bandaid that had been on a wound since it occurred. Peeling the uniform from her shoulders, she let it fall down her back, beyond caring if he watched. He was going to watch no matter what, and as a prisoner she no longer had the right to privacy, so Kitty wasn't going to let him enjoy her being embarrassed by it.

No, instead she took that uniform off and set it and her boots aside, turning back to look at him, to show him just had badly wounded that fight had left her. All those cuts and bruises that the uniform hid. There was nothing sexy about the moment as his eyes first caught sight of hers, then wandered down to look at her broken body. Kitty felt truly vulnerable, standing there, but said nothing.

"Shower," he told her, motioning towards the shower.

Kitty nodded, turning to carefully step into the shower. Turning the water on, she literally flinched and cried out when the water hit her wounds. The water made her muscles tense, made it all hurt so much more, and she found she couldn't move at all standing beneath that shower. Kitty turned to look at him, tears in her eyes mixing with the shower water that fell down her face, and she gave him a look that simply said, 'Well I hope you're enjoying this. It's what you wanted.'

John caught the look and closed and locked the door behind him, walking over towards the shower. Kitty's eyes widened with fear as he took his shoes, socks, and shirt off and pulled the curtain aside. These were all signs that he'd changed his mind after all, that he was going to do what he'd originally intended to, just to prove who was the alpha in this situation, and she was so completely broken there was nothing she could do to fight it. So what he said next surprised the hell out of her.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he assured her.

Something about the way he said it, about the way he looked at her, reminded Kitty of the John she'd once known, the John she'd gone to school with. It took her a moment, but eventually she nodded in reply.

Pulling that towel from the countertop--he could get another later--he brought it over and stepped into the shower behind her. "Just hold the fuck still so that I don't get any blood on me," he snapped, as if to remind her of who he was, that this did not mean he had changed.

Gently, so softly she barely felt it at first, he began to wash the wounds on her back that she couldn't get to. Pressing that towel against her skin, John washed away the dirt and sweat and blood that proved Kitty had fought until the very end. And as he carefully washed her skin, Kitty Pryde began to sob where she stood. He made no move to comfort her aside from what he was already doing, but with her back turned to him and she unable to see his expression, he easily wore a look of sympathy, perhaps even guilt.


End file.
